Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I still do not feel like justice was served...probably never will
A crane collapsed in Mecca today, killing 87 people & injuring many others. I guess that's not quite "cosmic revenge". Especially if those killed weren't Muslims, but workers from the Indian subcontinent.
I was living on Long Island at the time and it was 4 days before our wedding. We went out later that day to drop off a check for our flowers on time. On the way home heading South on Nicholls Rd from Stonybrook (if anyone is familiar with Suffolk County) we saw a twin rainbow. I know it sounds like a cheesy coincidence , but a caller on the radio station we were listening to saw it as well. I remember how quiet the skies around NY were for days - although we did see and hear fighter jets in the MacArthur airport vicinity.
I remember how united we were racially on and right after 9/11, but about 2 months after we were right back to the same ole Status Quo of Racism in this Country
It's sad that it takes a, complete tragedy in this country for us to understand each other and come together racially.
I don't know how I feel about all this memorial stuff. I think i find most of the facebook posts kind of annoying. Basically, if I see one more eagle and flag superimposed over the NYC skyline, I'm gonna puke. A few thousand people died that day - tell me their individual stories. I read as many as I can, but ... that's a lot of deaths. But yeah, tell me who they were. Don't give me symbols.
^ stuff makes me barf in my mouth.
I was lucky, I got out of Wall Street and off the island and onto a NJ ferry that was substantially beyond capacity. As we pulled away, people attempted to jump in the boat and landed in the water. We watched the towers come down from NY harbor with the air force flying overhead.
Like you, I was and remain more interested in individual stories than arm chair patriots.
Given 15/19 hijackers had Saudi passports and entered the US legally, no one was more surprised at the subsequent decision to invade Iraq.
I never forget that day, and I was in Hendersonville, Tn then. Never will. A horrific day with a bunch of American heroes giving the ultimate sacrifice.
Wow. I looked in the History forum and the New York City forum, thinking SURELY there must be a place on City-Data to say:
"I remember that day.
"Let us never forget how many innocent victims were murdered that day. And especially let us remember and salute the first responders who gave their lives trying to save people they didn't know."
It's been 14 years. I didn't know anyone who died in New York or DC or in the field in PA, but I still can't think about this day without overwhelming sadness and horror and anger. And I think about it much more often than just the anniversary.
So what about you? Do you even acknowledge this anniversary any more? Or is it too long ago to matter? If you were under 10 at the time, does 9/11 resonate at all for you?
And please, if I've just missed the right place to reply with a tribute, head me in the right direction.
I'll never forget it. I remember every detail of that morning. Horrible.
On this day of 9/11, it is most fitting to listen to Kate Smith's marvelous singing of "God Bless America" ...and may we always remember those who lost their lives in that horrific attack on America, September 11, 2001.
Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said that when he and a million other guys first heard her sing "God Bless America" on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes as they wiped away a tear or two. Here are the facts...
The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of "GOD BLESS AMERICA". But before you watch it, you should also know the story behind the first public showing of the song. PLEASE LISTEN TO THE PRELUDE CLOSELY. The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we'd have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans.
This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith.
Kate was also large; plus size, as we now say, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings". Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time.
Kate was also patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer, Irving Berlin (who also wrote "White Christmas") and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her.
He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before - way back in 1917. He gave it toher &she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.
This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, "You're In The Army Now." At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it's Ronald Reagan.
To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry..... and for many generations of Americans to follow. Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you'll enjoy it and treasure it even more.
Many people don't know there's a lead in to the song since it usually starts with "God Bless America".....So here's the entire song as originally sung.
I will yell from every mountaintop about not repeating the mistakes that led us to 9/11... those mistakes are being grossly repeated by Obama
Next time it might be 30 million Americans
So as politely as I can say ... you be quiet ...
Pathetic is some Americans who live in a bubble
We honor our fellow Americans by NOT allowing politicians to fail at keeping our homeland safe.
Talk about the wrong message.
The real message was that we had lost sight of proper behavior. We let people take over airplanes and required the crew and passengers cooperate. That was the bit of utter stupidity developed by our various governments from the 1960s on. Earlier you would have fought to keep an airplane from being taken.
Then we shut down the civil aircraft system. Absolute stupidity.. You run through it even if you have to put a cop on virtually every airplane. You never shut down for the terrorists.
And then we chartered TSA and other security folk forever changing America and again providing the terrorists a long range victory.
Thej problem that allowed 9/11 was fixed on 9/11 over Pennsylvania. The rest of what we did was all victory for the terrorists.
And the die on nuclear proliferation and its containment was cast long before Obama. North Korea and Pakistan are both worse than Iran. So it is not an Obama issue.
I expect it will slide out of view as it well should. With the exception of PA it was not our finest hour.
I really need to ask, if anyone was above the 85th floor or so of the towers, was there anything they should have done differently to survive?
Is it ever possible to jump 75+ floors and survive? What if you land on your feet?
Not onto concrete. Parachute's have failed and people have survived but they usually slowed down their fall with trees and landed in marshy bog. Very, rare. You would not survive this from a building.
No, the people on the upper floors could not get south of the floors where the plane crashed. They were only able to climb to the roof of the building.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
